


Nothing Is Forever

by aithne



Series: New Kirkwall (Modern AU) [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 06:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aithne/pseuds/aithne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before she took the name Kathil Nasmyth, she was Katje Mac Tir.  And before she moved to New Kirkwall, she had a life in Amaranthine with her partner.  But life is cheap in the Warrens, and death comes all too easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Is Forever

_It’s cold, feels like independence day  
and I can’t break away from this parade_

The Warrens by the Amaranthine docks were run-down and ramshackle, a maze of half-abandoned warehouses and junkyards piled high with old cars and rusting washing machines.  _Home sweet home._

Katje hauled open the sliding door of one of the warehouses, getting it just open enough to slip inside. The door screeched and protested as she rolled it shut, announcing the fact that she was home to everyone within a block radius.

The door was one of the many charms of the place.  It was hard for anyone to get in without making a racket, and those who lived nearby knew that she and Sati were well-armed and patrolled their territory assiduously.  It had no electricity, the plumbing only worked because Sati had managed to jury-rig the connection to the main, and there were a number of broken windows along the high row of them just under the roof.

But it was home, as much home as they’d had for the last few years.  A small enough place to launch an empire from, but adequate.

The spiral stairs that led up to what once had been offices were rickety, and shook a bit when Katje slipped up them and into the small space that they used for living quarters.  It was cold, but everything was cold right now.  It was going to be an early winter.

She dropped down onto the mattress that lay in the corner of the room and kicked off her shoes, unbuckling her belt and setting it and the holstered gun attached to it to the end of the bed.  Everywhere there was the detritus of their lives; clothes crumpled on the floor, a neat pile of ropes and harnesses and carabineers on the table. A glass pipe and a mirror occupied the corner of the table, next to a series of unmarked canisters.  They’d never worried overmuch about police raids, not here in the Warrens where the only law was what the residents made and enforced for themselves.

She flopped back on the mattress and closed her eyes.  It had been a good day, so far, and there was going to be work to do tonight.  They were starting to hit larger targets.  Their names were already made; now they just had to hold on to what they had and reach bigger and higher.

The warehouse door made a metallic scream, and she sat up.  She padded over to the balcony that overlooked the warehouse floor and saw a familiar figure yanking the door closed—a slim woman with dark hair and skin, wearing a close-fitted leather jacket and jeans.  She looked up at the offices and waved.

“Hey, Sati,” Katje called down.  “And—Maker, what have you brought?”

Sati flashed her a giant grin.  “Come down and see, spark!”

 _What_  turned out to be a mabari puppy with huge paws and melting brown eyes.  The pup gallumphed all over the dusty and leaf-strewn warehouse floor as Katje slipped under Sati’s arm and leaned into her.  She tweaked the end of one of Sati’s dreadlocks with a smile, watching the puppy investigate the floor of the warehouse. “He told me he wanted a human,” Sati said.  “And I figured you could probably use a dog.”  She wrapped her arm around Katje’s shoulders and squeezed.  “Happy nameday, spark.”

Katje gasped. “He’s for  _me_?”

Sati laughed. “I’m hopeless with dogs, you know that.  You’re the one who grew up around kennels.”

Anything else she might have said was silenced by the hard kiss Katje gave her, wrapping her body tightly around the taller woman’s frame.  “I love you,” Katje whispered after they broke the kiss.  “Thank you.”

It took a bit of convincing to get the pup up the stairs, but they managed it.  “We can go get a collar and things for him tomorrow,” Sati said. “The boys were dividing up the spoils from the hit on the Howe place, and I claimed this one.”

Katje snorted.  “Probably the single most valuable thing in the haul,” she said, scratching the pup behind the ears.  “These guys go for twenty thousand easy, especially at this age. Because you are the most precious puppy thing, aren’t you?” she cooed at the dog. 

For his part, the pup had apparently decided that Katje was his human.  He was sitting at her feet, leaning against her legs, looking around him as if deciding what was going to be fun to chew on.  She’d seen the imprinting process before, but it was the first time a mabari had ever imprinted on  _her_. 

He looked up at her as if to say  _of course I am the most precious puppy thing_ , and then settled down, tucking his nose under his stubby tail.  Katje leaned against Sati.  “Everything went smoothly then?” she asked.

“As ever. We’ll get the boys whipped together yet.”  Sati’s grin flashed in the light of the battery-operated lantern. “Just you wait.  We’re on the verge of something big.”

Kathil chuckled.  “Given any thought to that job I was talking about?”

“Yeah.” Sati kissed her temple.  “That’s the rest of your nameday present.  Found us a car to get out to West Hill with. We’ll go tomorrow, hit the place overnight, and come back by the next morning.  Easy as pie.”

Katje grinned and wrapped her arms around Sati.  “You are the best,  _fleche_. You know this, right?”

Sati chuckled.  Katje had started calling her  _fleche_  aftershe had discovered that as a young girl, Sati had been taught archery.  She always reminded Katje of an arrow, flying unerringly to her target.  And in return, Sati called her  _spark_ , because she had always said that was what had drawn her to Katje in the first place.   _My spark in the darkness. Sparky. Sparkler._

She pressed herself against her lover.  “My safe place,” she murmured, and heard Sati make a low sound in return.   _My safe place. The only safe place in the world is by your side._

The pup had fallen asleep, and they folded into making love atop the crumpled sheets and blankets.   _Best nameday,_  Katje thought later, as she was in the middle of falling asleep.   _Best nameday ever._

#

_But there’s got to be an opening_  
 _Somewhere here in front of me_  
 _Through this maze of ugliness and greed_

They were driving back from West Hill, a cardboard file box weighing down Katje’s lap. The pup, who Katje had named Lorn, was sitting in the back seat of the tiny car, watching the countryside as it slid by.  “Thank you,” she said to Sati, softly. “This means a lot.”

Sati raised one shoulder and gave her a half-smile.  “Hope it helps.” She took a deep draw on the pipe and handed it back to Katje.

“Me, too.”  She took a draw on the pipe, held the acrid smoke in her lungs. Inside this box was information that would potentially ruin so many lives: names, dates, payment amounts.  The Ariadne Girls’ Home was a place that the wealthy would send their daughters when they got into trouble; the babies that they had vanished into black-market adoptions.  But they kept records.  And some of those records had the signature of Rendon Howe on them.

The Howe not only knew about this particular holding of Howe Industries, he at one point had taken an active role in the managing of the place.  Katje knew enough about politics to know that he wouldn’t recover from a scandal like that easily. She breathed a cloud of smoke out and closed her eyes for a moment.

But there were so many other lives that would be torn apart: children who didn’t know they were adopted, adoptive families whose claim to their children would suddenly be in doubt, birth mothers who had been minors when they had given birth and who might not want it to be known what had happened to them.

And nothing at all about Katje, or the daughter she had given birth to eight years ago.

_It’s enough to get the place shut down._

She would need to plan.  Just releasing the information wasn’t going to be enough.  There would have to be an outcry, something for people to get behind.  She would need a face for this.  She wouldn’t be able to risk being the one on the news.

Katje smiled at Sati and offered her the pipe.  “You want to stop for coffee?”

“You read my mind.” She waved at the pipe, shaking her head. Katje set it in the ashtray.  “There’s a town coming up.”  She dropped her hand from the steering wheel and wrapped her fingers around Katje’s.  “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“I  _am_  the best second story woman in Amaranthine,” Katje said.  “It won’t be a problem.”  Sati was the planner, the one who ran the social engineering and kept the people who worked with them on jobs in line.  Katje was the one with the traditional skills—locks, entry, and climbing.  She was small and flexible, and could fit into places nobody ever suspected someone could be hiding.  Dance training was useful in so many ways, it turned out.  Far more than she’d ever realized as a child.    

And tomorrow’s job…well.  It was going to be  _spectacular._

“We are going to be  _so_  rich,” Katje murmured. 

“Told you, sparky,” Sati said.  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to a beat that only existed in her head.  “Big things.”

Katje giggled and Lorn barked at something he saw outside the window.  Coffee was just down the road, and the world was spread out, just for them.

#  


_Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes_  
 _This place is always such a mess_  
 _Sometimes I think I’d like to watch it burn_

Nothing had gone according to plan.

People were always the weak point, and this had been no exception. “I hate it when we have to shoot our way out of places,” Katje groused.  “No class.”  She was wrapped tightly in several blankets, watching Sati clean and reload one of her guns.  The temperature had plummeted last night, and it was well below freezing outside.  It wasn’t much warmer inside, and Katje had always been sensitive to the cold.

“We’re not in jail at least,” Sati said.  “Lorn,  _no_.”  Lorn dropped the piece of cloth he had been chewing on.  “Maker, dog, those are  _mine!_ ” She rescued the pair of underwear and tossed them onto the table.  “Why.  Why did I get you a dog.”

Katje giggled and raised her camera, taking a picture of Sati’s grumpy face.  “Because you love me.”  _Click._  “Lots more than any pair of panties.”  Lorn rolled onto his back and paddled his giant paws in the air.  “And see, he’s cute.”

“So are you,” Sati said with a laugh.  “And both of you are  _trouble_.”

She gave Sati her very best puppy eyes, and took another picture when Sati grinned at her.  “Incorrigible.”  She stood, rolling her shoulders.  “We still need to drop off that package,” she said, nodding to a brick-sized package, wrapped in brown paper.  “I’ll go do it.”

“Not alone,” Katje said, and sat up.

Sati shrugged.  “It’s not like it’s much of a risk, and someone has to keep an eye on your monster here.”

“We’ll have to get him a crate or something,” she said, and relented.  “All right.  Be careful.”

“I always am.”  She came over to wrap her arms around Katje.  Katje buried her face in Sati’s neck and breathed in the warm scent of her.  “Love you, spark.”

“Love you,” Katje said, fighting the urge to cling to Sati.  No matter how much they fought, how many times they threatened to break things off with one another, they always came back to this—neither of them felt whole without the other one.  Sati kept the whispers away, made the world quiet and still. 

After she left, Katje took Lorn downstairs to throw a ball in the emptiness of the downstairs of the warehouse.  Late afternoon light filtered in through the high windows as she bounced the ball towards the far wall.  When the puppy returned, he wouldn’t give her the ball back, so she bowed to him instead. 

She did a  _plié_ , then began to dance.  Her control wasn’t what it should have been, her  _battements_  sloppy, her back not quite arched correctly.  But she executed a flying leap over the puppy, who barked in excitement and chased her all the way across to the end of the warehouse. 

She danced across the dusty floor, executing neat turns, remembering dance studios with shining wood floors and mirrored walls.  How far she’d come from that girl she’d been, the silent little thing who had been dropped off at class three days a week, whose father had never come to recitals.

She came to a halt and bent in a low bow to Lorn, who panted happily at her.  They could go get takeout after Sati got back.  Maybe Antivan.  She went upstairs to get her gun and her camera, and spent some time snapping pictures of Lorn.

The hours went by, and her partner did not return.

#

_I’m so alone, and I feel just like somebody else  
Man, I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same_

Dawn came thin and grey.  Sati did not come back.

Katje blew on her fingers, turned on the little battery-powered radio, poured food into Lorn’s bowl.  She wished they had electricity, sometimes.  Tea would have been nice.

Lorn attacked his bowl like he had never seen food before.  Katje huddled into her blankets.  The woman’s voice on the radio was soothing and calm.

“And in local news, a shooting has left one woman dead in the Gorse Park projects. Police have not yet identified the victim, but they say the shooting was likely gang-related.  This has been the deadliest year ever in that troubled neighborhood, with thirty-two shootings since the beginning of the year…”

Her stomach seized.

_Sati._

She got up, clipped a leash to Lorn’s collar.  “Let’s go for a walk, little guy. Talk to some people.”

An hour later, a friend confirmed what Katje had feared—the shooting victim had been Sati.  One bullet, to the heart. She had bled out before anyone had called an ambulance. Word was that the shooter had been a professional; the drugs she’d been carrying hadn’t been taken.

She went to see the place where Sati had died, in Gorse Park. It was cold enough that Sati’s blood had frozen in a puddle onto the sidewalk.  She raised the camera, snapped a picture. Lorn sniffed the pole of a parking sign and looked at her, confused.

A sleek black sedan pulled away nearby.  The hairs on the back of Katje’s neck prickled, and she turned away.

Voices whispered in the back of Katje’s head.   _Now there’s nothing between us and you._

She started walking, and did not stop.

#

_“Pronto, chi parla?”_

“Z? Oh Maker, Z, I think I’m in trouble.”

“Katje?  What is happening? Where  _are_  you?  It has been half a year since—“

“I think I can hear the Maker, Z, and I think he’s angry at me. So many voices, so _much_ , they all want things from me, I swear they’re going to tear me apart…”

“Katje.  Slow down.  Have you taken something?”

“L-lyrium. Too much. I think.”

“ _Creatore._  Where are you?”

“A…h-house. I don’t know.  Amaranthine.”

“Stay on the line, Katje.  Talk to me.  How much have you taken?”

“I…I don’t know.  Maybe…maybe twenty grams?  It’s too much.  Maker, Z, the _voices_.  They’re coming for me and when they get to me they’re going to tear me into pieces and they’re going to  _eat_  me—“

“Where is Sati?  Is she near?”

“N-no.  S-s-sati’s  _dead_  they  _shot_  her Z I’m sorry, so sorry, so scared…”

“I have your location now.  We will be there in twenty minutes.  Stay where you are, Katje.  We are coming for you.”

The line went dead and Katje dropped the phone, the ring tone buzzing in her ear. She curled up on her side on the stained, bare mattress, hugging her knees and rocking.  The voices in her head screamed.

_I’m sorry.  So sorry._

#

_But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin’ dreams  
I think her death it must be killin’ me_


End file.
